As Cannes seems to be more about personalities than the art of film, French critics of the quasi-popular dailies (Le Monde, Libération, L'Humanité, Le Figaro), like their British counterparts, have been complicit with this phenomenon.

First, the stars. Many writers seem to have fallen in love with or become obsessed by Penélope Cruz, Charlotte Gainsbourg and … Eric Cantona. Libération gushes: "Pedro Almodóvar [in Broken Embraces] gets from her [Cruz] something that no Hollywood production ever has – a certain smile, real tears and, above all, derisive humour at her own image and her celebrated beauty. She shows sides we have never seen before. She is almost ugly in a scene without makeup … It is her best performance." Le Monde claims that "until now, only Almodóvar has done Cruz justice. This time she is a fallen angel, offering herself to a rich man in order to redeem herself as an actress. This character could be a cliché in other hands, but here she is as moving as a heroine in one of Douglas Sirk's melodramas."

Libération spent most of the space given to Antichrist on Charlotte Gainsbourg. "The best part of the film is the way Von Trier has used the Gainsbourg creature, whom he sees as ferocious and destructive, playing against her sweet and fragile persona. We must congratulate her for delivering her body and soul to the Danish director. This is exactly the experience she needed. To let her hair down, to escape all her personal and family mythology that has clung to her … It was time for her to take a real risk, even if it meant being abused."

In Looking for Eric, L'Humanité declares that "Cantona bravely breaks down the cliche of the macho footballer when he 'plays the girl' in a rock'n'roll duet with Eric Bishop". Libération, who called Cantona "a giant", asserted: "Looking for Eric is very funny. Much of the humour is particular to Cantona such as his phrase [in English] that has already become legend, 'I am not a man, I am Cantona.' Remember his celebrated line [in English], 'When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea', which was appreciated in England, the official country of nonsense."

Le Monde thought that "Looking for Eric came as a half-time relief in the programme of the festival that has its usual amount of horror films, polemical ones, gruelling ones. Like in a Frank Capra movie, the spirit of Cantona appears in the loser's bedroom and explains to him that it's a wonderful life … Ken Loach has scored many wonderful goals in the past, and he won't be lifting the champion's cup with this one. It must be considered a parenthesis, a bit of fun after two serious subjects … Looking for Eric is likable, full of the ineffable presence of Cantona. But it's lightweight Ken Loach."

Back to Antichrist. "Antichrist is a hodgepodge of pseudo-psychoanalysis. One doesn't know what is most boring in the film, because we have quite a choice. Treating the audience as imbeciles, every sign is followed by stupid dialogue and laboured situations," sniffs L'Humanite. "A problematic, impenetrable, shocking work … The superb opening sequence where the montage moves from body to body of the lovers to the child's figure, is already terrifying with its associations between love and death, innocence and damnation, pleasure and suffering … It is a representation of original sin containing an abominable paradox: a child dies from the desire that brought about his birth … References abound: Jérôme Bosch, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman, August Strindberg, Friedrich Nietzsche," says Le Monde. "Puerile, pretentious and grotesque," fumes Le Figaro. "Antichrist lies between Munch and his Scream and Strindberg and his madness," says La Croix.

But it was Quentin Tarantino and his Inglorious Basterds which made the loudest noise on the Croisette. Libération described the excitement that "every appearance of the crazy guy from Hollywood creates" and the morning of the press screening "where the crowd of hacks were pushing and swearing, a forest of accreditation badges shoved in the faces of the doormen … The panic on the faces of those who thought they couldn't get in … In the full theatre, there was applause by the Tarantino fan club when his name appeared on the screen. This incredibly inflated baroque film seemed to satisfy these fans who were fainting with pleasure".

Le Monde suggested that Tarantino had been "carried away and raped by Sergio Leone … The symbolism is impossible to disentangle, but at least the direction is the most inventive when it deals with the perversions and liberties of art faced with the cruelties of history. A weightless film, it will irritate or seduce". Le Figaro found it "verbose and static. Like giving a shotgun to a child who shoots his own foot".